Voice of the Future, Blood in My Veins
by Old Emerald Eye
Summary: The classic Astra finds Kara's pod, (even if she isn't the first to do so) now with added military intervention and ice-cream.


**Title:** Voice of the Future, Blood in My Veins

**Summary:** The classic Astra finds Kara's pod, (even if she isn't the first to do so) now with added military intervention and ice-cream.

Canon divergence from just after Kara lands on Earth. Inspired by beyondambivilant's _What Could've Been_.

Part of the Ad Astra series, in which I attempt to add Astra. Wherever she will fit.

* * *

Superman's response to the third possibly-alien-but-probably-just-a-satalite-falling-out-of-orbit in a week is delayed due to Lois's completely reasonable request that they go out for an ice-cream since they're both free at the same time, for once in their busy, busy lives. He sees no harm in it – the meteorite was barely large enough to survive entry through the Earth's atmosphere, much less contain a world-ending threat. He misses Fort Rozz's arrival entirely.

Kara is jolted out of stasis by the sudden firmness of ground beneath her pod. The moment after, she is nearly sent back into the embrace of unconsciousness as overstimulation rushes over her like a wave of radiation. After an eternity of nothing, even the uncluttered vista and muffled sound filtering through her pod's seal feels like an attack.

One Kara's eyes have adjusted to the way the sun above her is far too bright, she breaches the seal and climbs out. She is alone, standing in what appears to be the midst of a vast plain of single stalked fauna, a mixture of and the radiant of when Rao catches at Argos crystal spires.  
Her surveillance completed, she wanders away from her pod towards the nearest landmark – an outcropping of stone - to look for Kal. He has to be nearby, her pod was programmed to escort his just as she was assigned to escort his development, but the last shockwave – her mind shies away from the thought of it – must have knocked her off course or they would be settled no more than three body-lengths apart.

A rapid deployment military strike force is first to arrive on scene, the blades of its helicopters thundering in Kara's suddenly sensitive ears like some great mechanical beast from miles away. She hunkers down by the shadow of her outcrop, trying to gain control of her ears, her eyes, and then, as the level of solar radiation in her cells ticks over a certain percentage, her strength and she pulverises handfuls of loose rock. She cannot bear to scream – not when even the blood in her veins is more than intolerable.

Astra appears – not graceful, not yet, she hasn't had the time for learning that – flinging herself from the sky to find a pod that is blaring :{~{Child}/{Heir}/{House of El}~}: on all frequencies cracked open and surrounded by armed beings with none but the most superficial resemblance to Kryptonian form. No doubt the remnants of an abandoned experiment from before Krypton turned its focus inwards.  
They shoot at her. They shoot at her, and even as she evades bullets that cannot harm her, their fate is sealed, because Kara is gone and if they're shooting her, what have they done to Kara, who is a child and defenseless and alone and the only thing that she has left?

She settles in the bloody silence to access the pod's systems. If she gets the recording of what was said as they took her – they may also have mentioned where. Even their base of operations would be enough. She'll have to learn the language before she can utilise her findings, and find a locator . . . Sounds of the life around her start to filter in as she works to circumvent the damage.

Insects, water, grasses moved by the wind, distant laboured breathing.

Astra In-Ze is highly trained, with more experience in subterfuge than ten fresh graduates of Kandor's diplomatic training combined. She does not do anything so uncouth and risky as snap around to face the newly identified sound. The only things that she snaps are the bones, exoskeletons, or weapons of her enemies.  
She still leaves scorch marks on the earth beneath her feet. She has not - will not fail her _ehlah_ again.

* * *

ehlah (ehl + ah) _little star_


End file.
